


Alpha Incipiens

by sanidine



Series: Prompts & Kinkmeme Fills [7]
Category: WWE, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Animal Death/Hunting, Blood, Collars, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kidnapping, M/M, Psychological Horror, Supernatural Elements, Violence, post shield
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-17
Updated: 2016-06-17
Packaged: 2018-07-15 15:59:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7229107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanidine/pseuds/sanidine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It had been a long time since Seth had been outside, seen the sun. The only light in the basement had come from the lanterns that they brought down with them and always set well out of Seth's reach. Now that he was back in the world his head was ringing. Everything seemed so much louder, so much more vivid, and Seth was caught off guard to see how pale he was under the caked on grime and smears of dried blood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Alpha Incipiens

**Author's Note:**

> Soooo...this was kinda inspired by the kinkmeme [here](https://wrestlingkink.dreamwidth.org/279.html?thread=408343#cmt408343) but idk if this actually fills the prompt. Maybe check it out though if the tags worry you or you want a better idea of what's in store here.

There were eighteen links of chain between the padlock that connected it to heavy bolt in the floor and the collar clasped around Seth's neck. Big inch and a half links, thick steel, about two feet of leeway. Not enough to even sit up properly. Seth had recently begun a campaign to try and grind one of the links down by rubbing it against the floor, but the cement had started to wear down before the chain did. When he heard the door creak open he stopped the grinding, crouching as well as he could to watch as Bray stomoed down into the basement.

Seth bit his tongue, kept his mouth shut. He had tried yelling and threatening and begging and none of it had worked. The others had only ever hurt him for it, but Seth had found that Bray was infuriatingly willing to talk for hours and hours and hours. It was almost worse, because all Bray ever said was nonsense and he never got any closer to letting Seth go.

Seth had a nagging suspicion that Bray was getting bored with him. Harper and Rowan still seemed to delight in taking their frustrations out on him but ultimately Bray would be the one to decide if Seth was worth keeping around. A couple of days before, or maybe closer to a week, it was hard for Seth to keep track of time, Bray had come down and sat on the floor across from Seth. Bray had stared at him for what felt like hours, until Seth’s resolve had crumbled and he'd tried to get Bray to talk. For once, Bray had nothing to say. And now he was back.

Bray strolled over to crouch down in front of Seth, grinned that jack-o-lantern smile. Seth backed up as far as he could, until the chain went taut and metal collar was digging into the abused flesh of his neck. He was breathing hard as Bray reached down, a glinting silver key held delicately between two thick fingers. When Bray opened the lock between the chain and the floor Seth overbalanced, tumbled on his ass, scrambled so that his back was up against the wall. The eighteen links of chain slapped against Seth’s chest, rattling as Bray spun the lock around his finger once. Twice. Tucked it into his pocket without breaking eye contact with Seth.

“ _ Run _ .”

Seth didn't move. He stayed where he was, breathing hard, backed up against the wall, as Bray climbed up the creaking steps without another word. Left the door open behind him. There was a ray of light spilling down the steps and it wsn't long until Seth heared an engine roar to life, the crunch of tires on gravel as Bray drove away. Once the vehicle was gone it was very, very quiet.

Seth made himself count to two thousand before he ran.

Maybe Wyatt thought that Seth wouldn't try to escape in his condition. Naked and barefoot and filthy, weak and malnourished from an unsteady diet of nothing but flavorless oatmeal and Vienna sausages, and he's. Hurt. But if Bray thought Seth had one scrap of dignity left then the joke was squarely on that swamp dwelling motherfucker. At this point Seth would run bare assed and burning through Times Square if it got him the hell away from these fucking psychopaths.

He hadn’t wanted to stop and look for clothes, hadn't wanted to spend any longer in that creepy fucking house than he had to, but about a half mile down the gravel road Seth concedes that he should probably at least have tried to find shoes. Flip flops. Anything. Running in the ditch wasn't much better, weeds up to his knees and probably filled with all sorts of fucked up bugs and snakes and shit, but Seth didn't want to have to slow down because he was a dumbass and tore up his feet.

It had been a long time since Seth had been outside, seen the sun. The only light in the basement had come from the lanterns that they brought down with them and always set well out of Seth's reach. Now that he was back in the world his head was ringing. Everything seemed so much louder, so much more vivid, and Seth was caught off guard to see how pale he was under the caked on grime and smears of dried blood.

Seth was a little lightheaded as he jogged around a wide curve in the road. He saw a fence, three lines of barbed wire pulled taut between wooden posts, and thought ‘ _ that's it _ .’ Seth had just enough time to let out a single triumphant cheer before a huge, dark blur blindsided him and knocked him to the ground. When he stopped seeing stars Seth had to blink, tried and failed to wrap his mind around what he was seeing.

“Roman?”

Seth would know Roman anywhere. The two of them had been brothers once, closer than blood. There's no denying that the man who has tackled and pinned him to the ground is Roman Reigns. He was. But he wasn't the Roman that Seth had known.

\---

It didn't take Seth long to figure out why Bray let him out of the basement. When he had been down there, he had been single-mindedly obsessed with finding a way out. He had a purpose. Escape meant freedom and revenge on those Authority fucks who’d handed him over to the Wyatt clan. But now that Seth had been unchained he has a lot more to worry about on top of the dawning realization that his current situation was somehow even worse than he had imagined.

Seth learned in time that he had full run of the forest and the disgusting, dilapidated house, although he tries to avoid the basement that he had so recently been freed from. Nothing good ever happened in there. He still had the metal collar and the eighteen links of chain around his neck as a token and a warning. 

When Seth was alone he could wander in the woods for hours. Roman was always there, lingering in the corner of Seth's vision as he followed him through the humid stands of slash pines and saw palmettos. Seth learned through trial and error that Roman would only make his presence forcefully known when Seth got far enough that he could lay eyes on the fence line. Then Roman would appear out of the woods and stop him from going any further. Roman was a tireless sentinel. It didn't matter what Seth did, how he tried to outwit or outrun him - Roman was always there. 

There's something in Roman’s eyes that is wild and distant to Seth, something that he can't understand. His hair and his beard had grown out and gone wild - he looked almost like one of the Wyatts, a stark contrast to the patchy buzzcut that Seth has sported since his kidnapping.

("Come now." The big hand fisted hard in Seth's hair, the burr of the electric razor. "You don't need to carry into Her light what you grew in the darkness.")

Just like with the Wyatts, nothing Seth said seems to have an effect on Roman. Nothing he could offer, no amount of yelling or pleading. Roman never said anything in return, but he also didn't harass or hurt Seth unless he had to in order to stop Seth from getting close to that fence. It creeped Seth the fuck out, but it was almost better out in the woods with Roman than it was back in the house. 

The first time Seth got the courage to go exploring he found clothes right away. They were filthy and full of holes, about two sizes too big for Seth, but at least he wasn't completely nude and vulnerable anymore. Shoes, however, continued to evade him. There was one room that had a pile of little kids sneakers in the middle of it, but nothing that would fit Seth. A lot of the rooms are filled with useless, creepy junk that is just so fucking stereotypical of the Wyatts - headless baby dolls, deer antlers, piles and piles of old books and newspapers rendered soggy and illegible by water damage. 

In some rooms the floorboards were so warped and bloated by years of moisture and neglect that walking across them was more like riding a roller coaster. Galaxies of mildew had colonized entire walls, and if Seth didn't have literally one thousand other more immediate threats to his life then he would be seriously worried about toxic black mold. There were two floors, not counting the basement, or maybe there were three floors - Seth can't be sure. 

There are rooms upon rooms upon rooms in the sprawling house. One room he found had a busted window, and it has been invaded and completely carpeted by wild kudzu vines. But then when he walked around the outside of the house to try and pinpoint the location, to get his bearings… Seth saw that all the glass was intact. There wasn't even any kudzu growing on the building. Every time that Seth started to think that he had explored the entire house he would turn a corner and find something new. Some of the doors are locked. Most of them are open.  

The kitchen cabinets wee empty except for cockroaches a lot of the time, but Bray usually remembered to bring a couple bags of canned food back with him when the Wyatts returned for a few days at a time. Their comings and goings didn't seem to align at all with what Seth remembers of the WWE touring schedule. Then again it's not like the house has electricity, much less cable, so Seth couldn't exactly stay caught up on RAW and Smackdown. Maybe if he figured out what pay-per view was coming up he'd know what month it was, how long the Wyatts had him. Seasons didn't really change in Florida. 

Sometimes none of the Wyatts came around for a long time and the carefully rationed cans dwindled, ran out. Then Dean would bring food for Seth.

There's something wrong with Roman, that's for damn sure. Whatever was wrong with Dean was just as bewildering in a completely different way. Because this Dean remembered Seth's betrayal, but there's nothing left of the furious lunatic who had dogged Seth's footsteps before Dean (and then Roman) disappeared about two months before Seth himself was kidnapped. Dean talks, laughs, lays curled up next to Seth when Seth can't help but break down and shake under the weight of this hellish new reality he can't escape. Dean will kiss back when Seth mashes their mouths together, desperate to feel anything other than pain, and he's the only one in the house that fucks Seth gently, takes his time. Sometimes Dean would grin and press his face in Seth's armpit, nibble at the sensitive flesh until Seth couldn't help but laugh and forget about everything for a second. 

It just made the eventual remembering hurt that much more.

Because if Dean seemed alright some of the  time it's nothing more than a thin veneer over whatever the fuck Bray Wyatt did to him. In contrast to the harsh metal collar and chain around Seth's own neck, Dean wore one made out of soft black leather with a shiny brass buckle. No matter how filthy Dean got that collar always seems clean. There's no lock on it and Seth knows that Dean could easily remove the collar if he so desired. He just doesn't want to take it off, got snappy and mean if Seth even suggested such a thing.

Dean is definitely not okay. He was always a tough son-of-a-bitch, unwilling to stay down when he was hurt, but now Dean doesn't seem to feel pain at all. He won't sleep anywhere other than under the house’s wrap-around porch. Dean’s hair and beard have grown out and gone wild like Roman’s (like Bray and Harper and Rowan), and when the canned food ran out Dean would always bring Seth fresh meat.

There were rabbits and squirrels and, in one memorable instance, a huge porcupine.  The animals were always freshly disemboweled, and Dean liked for Seth to stand and watch as he skinned them on the steps of the house. Then he would present the carcasses to Seth, grinning from ear to ear, so proud of himself. Dean laughs every time that Seth built a fire. He seemed to think that it was ridiculous in a cute, endearing kind of way that Seth wanted to cook his share of the meat. 

Seth had a lot of nightmares about Dean’s hands and teeth, slick with blood.

But when the Wyatts come around Seth didn't have time to sleep, much less have nightmares. The interludes where Seth sees no one other than Roman or Dean were peaceful by comparison and always eventually interrupted by the long stretches of days marked by nothing other than chaos and pain. 

One of the first things that Bray always did once he returned was to grab Seth and the battery powered razor and buzz off whatever hair and beard he had managed to grow in their absence. Back when Seth had still struggled against this process Bray would tackle him to the ground, one knee between Seth's shoulder blades to pin him flat and crush the air out of his chest. Now Seth would just sit on the porch and stare off at the woods, trying to just zone out as the familiar act was performed. It hurts less that was, and it wasn't like his weak protests had ever done anything. Besides, Bray did a much better job of giving haircuts when he wasn't also preoccupied with making sure Seth didn't wriggle away or get any hits in.

“Why's Rowan the only one of you that gets to shave his head?” Seth had asked once, sullen as he ran his hands over the new soft fuzz of his scalp.

Bray had just chuckled, gave Seth a pat on the back that knocked the wind out of him.

“Sister Abigail can't bless us all the time. Though, I do believe brother Erick’s beard more than makes up for his other follicular shortcomings.”

All that shit, when the only thing Bray had to say was that Erick Rowan was just fucking bald.

Even when they got wild and violent, making himself scarce while the Wyatts were around was a bad idea. The safest thing to do seemed to be to lurk around the edge of wherever they were, to stay quiet and out of the way but still visible and available. If Seth tried to hide, Rowan would fixate on finding him, hunting him down and dragging him out of wherever he'd managed to hole up. It was always worse after that, as if had been a game and Rowan expected an extra reward for winning with such ease.

\---

Seth had tried to kill Bray, once. 

He had reasoned that if he cut off the head the rest of the beast would die - whatever weird brainwash was on Roman and Dean would lift and they could all escape together. It hadn't been hard to find a weapon. It wasn't like they bothered to hide their knives. 

Bray’s back had been turned and Seth's hand had been sweating around the handle of the blade but he was going to fucking do it, he was, he even had the knife raised and ready to strike when Luke Harper's huge paw of a hand had appeared out of nowhere and clamped down around Seth's thib wrist. Before Seth could try to pull away or push forward or turn the knife on Luke somehow, Rowan was there. He grabbed the chain connected to Seth's collar and yanked hard, forcing him to the floor at the same time that Harper twisted the knife out of Seth's trapped hand.

When they got done with him a couple of hours later, Seth was unceremoniously dumped in one of the house’s many empty rooms. He had no idea how much blood he had lost, but it was mostly just the white wall of pain and the probable concussion that had him drifting in and out of consciousness. Seth heard footsteps coming towards him and tried to scramble away, succeeding only in rolling onto his side. Even that little bit of motion was enough to make Seth puke up bile from his empty stomach, and it was a couple more minutes before he could manage to open his swollen eyes to peek and see who it was. It turned out to be Dean, crouched down next to Seth and looking at him with the saddest face that Seth had ever seen him.

“Why’d you have to do that, huh?” Dean asked, stroking the abused flesh of Seth's neck, gentle as he traced the cuts left by the hard edge of the collar. “Why do you always gotta be so mean?”

\---

Over time Seth developed a Pavlovian response where his blood turned to icy slush whenever he heard the approaching truck engine. At first he had held out some hope that maybe it was the cops, maybe someone had come looking for him. But it was only ever the Wyatts, and even though Bray brought food their return never heralded good things for Seth. 

(Seth had tried again and again to find  where Bray hid the keys, even considered trying to hotwire the engine despite having no idea how to do such a thing. Of course, he would have to get close enough to the truck to touch it. Turned out that Roman guarded the truck with the same intensity as the forbidden fence line.)

Dean, on the other hand, would almost come out of his skin with excitement whenever the Wyatt family returned. He seemed to forget that Seth even existed the moment the front door creaked open - Dean loved the Wyatts now. He would trail around after Bray like an eager dog, lapping up whatever attention Bray deigned to give him and disappearing together for hours at a time. Dean was also overly fond of Luke Harper, and he and Harper would engage in viscous play-fights that were even more violent than an actual match.

Seth had seen Dean and Roman mess around sometimes in the yard, when Dean got bored and tried to get Roman to do stuff with him if Seth was either too hurt or too depressed to move. Roman would usually indulge him briefly, grapple with Dean for a bit and nuzzle their heads together before Roman shook him off and headed back out into the trees. The fighting with Harper was nothing like that.

The house was dented and scarred all over in testament to their rough housing. Bray would just watch and laugh, indulgent while Seth tried and often failed to stay out of the way. The two of them just went all out on each other. Harper would shoulder tackle Dean, powerbomb him into the buckled floorboards and throw him into the cracked drywall. Dean would lie in wait under the porch and knock Harper's legs out, hit him with a flying tackle from the top of a staircase, two of them rolling around  and beating the crap out of each other with bloody grins on their faces. 

When they eventually settled down, they would sack out wherever they last fell and Luke would stroke his hand through Dean’s hair, run his fingers all nice and sweet across the leather collar. It's the only time Seth had ever seen the man be gentle. With Seth, Luke liked to leave big bruised rings around his wrists, dark fingerprint smudges all across Seth's hips and thighs. Luke liked to wrap the eighteen links of chain around his hand once, twice, and to pull it tight so that his fist was right up next to Seth's neck as Luke pinned him to the ground.

Likewise, Seth had never thought of Harper as much of a talker - he could count on one hand the number of full sentences he'd ever heard out of Luke before this. Harper didn't have the same eloquence for bullshit that Bray did, but Seth had learned a lot about the man just by eavesdropping on him when he's petting Dean. 

Luke had talked once about how he went to live with his Great Aunt Harper when he was ten years old. He said that Great Aunt Harper was big enough that it took three dogs to bark at her, and this move was made on account of the fact that Luke's dad got stabbed to death in the woods behind the 7-11. The sheriff had said that Luke couldn't keep living in his dad's trailer by himself because there had to be an adult taking care of him. Luke had never realized that was what his dad was supposed to be doing.

Luke had stopped going to school after a hurricane ripped the roof off of it and the town started bussing everyone an hour each way to the county seat. He'd met Bray by then, and Luke knew for sure that school didn't matter anymore. Not for him, and certainly not for Bray. Bray was the smartest person Luke knew, even though he'd never so much as been registered for classes, so Luke had followed Bray out into the swamp when he was thirteen. 

Luke said he hadn't needed school because he already knew a lot of things. Important things. The type of stuff that didn't get taught in a class. Some of it was stuff that every kid in his town knew, like the fact that spanish moss had chiggers in it or that having an awning with a blue underside was the best way to keep haints out of your home. But a lot of the stuff Luke talked about were things that normal people didn't have any clue about.

One time, Seth had been basically trapped in the room with them. They were sprawled out by the door with Luke leaning back against the frame and Dean laid out on the floor with his head on Luke's lap. Seth would have had to step over them, inviting Harper's wrath if he were to try and leave the room. He’d had no choice but to crouch in the corner and listen to all the truly bizarre shit that was coming out of Luke's mouth.

Luke told Dean that dogs didn't bark at him if they were alone, only in pairs. He told Dean that he knew it was bad luck to count birds but that six crows meant death and that was how he had known his dad was dead even before the sheriff showed up. He knew that Bray didn't ever get sick even though Bray's people weren't the type to make sure kids got their shots. He knew that church was never over until all the snakes were back in the bag.

Then Luke caught Seth's cautious stare, grinned at Seth as he locked on and held eye contact with him as Luke spoke about how he knew that some people never stopped screaming. That some stains never came out.

\---

The storm had been pounding at the house for hours and hours and Seth knew that it was only a matter of time before someone turned to him for entertainment. Everyone was cooped up together inside and, in fact, he was kind of surprised that it hadn't happened yet. All of the Wyatts seemed oddly subdued by the weather but Seth couldn't relax. He was on edge, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Harper and Rowan were just standing around with their arms crossed while Bray rocked back and forth in that stupid chair and stared out at the sheeting rain, the tree branches whipping in the screaming wind. 

Eventually, the storm started to let up. Seth glanced out the window, and in the whisker thin time between one second and the next, Rowan and Harper were gone and Bray had crossed the room without a sound to get all up in Seth's personal space. Seth set his jaw, ready to try and accept whatever wAs about to happen to him with some vestige of dignity. Then he saw the knife in Bray’s belt. Gleaming steel, shining in the low light - freshly sharpened.

Seth struggled, thrashed and fought as Bray ripped his shirt off and tried to pin his hands. He didn't want to die. After everything Seth still wasn't ready for Bray to end his miserable fucking life, but he was weak and he had a lot of old unhealed injuries. It only took one hard hit to the side of his head to rattle his brains and make him see stars. When Seth got his wits back about him he'd been gagged and slung over Bray’s shoulders in a fireman's carry, his wrists and ankles bound tight with raw rope.

He watched as the rotten floor of the forest passed by underneath him. It was too silent with the storm dissipated - Seth couldn't even hear any birds screeching or bugs humming. There was only the heavy crunch of Bray’s footsteps and the frantic pounding of his own heart. Seth could see the curved knife in Bray’s belt slapping against the side of his thigh as he walked, but with his hands tied ul behind his back Seth had no hope of reaching it.

They eventually emerged into a clearing and Bray dropped Seth unceremoniously, as if he were just a heavy sack of gravel. Seth blinked as he tried to catch his breath, looked around to see the others all standing in a wide semi-circle around the edge of the tree line, facing him and Bray. Seth wasn't close enough to be sure, but from his place on the ground he thought that all of their eyes looked very, very blank. Open but unseeing. None of them took any notice of Seth. It was like they were all in a trance, caught under some sort of spell as they stared out into the forest.

Seth sputtered when Bray grabbed the chain attached to his collar and yanked, pulling Seth up to kneel. Bray put his left hand on top of Seth's head, let's it rest there for a minute with the tips of his thick fingers curving down over Seth's hairline and onto his forehead. Seth was breathing hard around the gag in his mouth, the rough fabric dripping with saliva. He closed his eyes. It was still so quiet in the forest, with only the soft patter of water dripping to the ground to disturb the silence. Seth’s eyes were still scrunched closed, but he could have sworn that he felt something huge and dark pass over the clearing.

Bray started saying something, talking and chanting and Seth couldn't understand any of it. The words coming out of Bray’s mouth weren't in English. They weren't in any language that Seth had ever heard. 

Ever so gently, Bray tipped Seth's head backwards to expose the long curve of his neck like a sacrificial lamb. Seth waited and waited, but the cold kiss of the knife did not come. Bray just kept chanting. When Seth finally dared to peek open his eyes he was looking up, and he could see a huge curved wall of clouds towering over the trees. The the knowledge came to him instantly - it hadn’t just been a bad storm  They were in the eye of a fucking hurricane. 

Bray stopped speaking. Silence rushed back in. When Seth saw the flash of the blade in the corner of his eye he started to fight again. The hand that had been on his head slid down and Bray hooked two fingers in between the collar and Seth's neck. It pulled tight, the metal flush against the permanent bruises that had been all but tattooed into Seth's skin, but it didn't start to hurt until Bray yanked upward. He was holding Seth so that his knees dangled a couple of inches off the ground. Seth couldn't get his bound feet beneath himself no matter how hard he struggled, and he was starting to choke thanks to the unyielding edge of metal that was digging in hard between his neck and his jaw, cutting into his throat.

It seemed that Bray was finally tired of fucking around. The knife came down as Seth thrashed, tried to avoid it, but instead of slitting his jugular Bray carved a scrawling curve along the jut of Seth's collarbone. The blood flowed immediately in a hot, stinking salt-iron river that ran freely down the side of Seth's chest. Bray set him back down on his knees, and even though his fingers were still hooked under the collar at least Seth could breathe again. The first rush of air was dizzying, and the black mist that had been threatening to overtake Seth's vision started to recede.

Bray ran his hand along the fresh cut, swiping some of the blood up onto his fingers as Seth screamed into the gag. Luke Harper came forward, eyes still distant as he took a long, curving route around the clearing instead of walking straight across. Seth had to blink a few times as he tried to get his bearings and figure out the reason for Harper's circuitous route. He didn't know why it was suddenly so important to him, but Seth felt that he had, absolutely had to figure it out. Pulling the collar against his neck a little as he bent his head forward, it didn't take Seth long to understand. 

There was a sinkhole in the middle of the clearing. How the fuck had he missed that before? Maybe he didn't notice it before because it wasn't there before. But that just wouldn't be possible. The sinkhole must have been at least thirty feet across where the ground has caved in and crumbled away, and he was within two steps of the steep edge of it. Something cold started to creep up Seth's spine.

Harper stood at attention in front of them and Bray reached out, smeared his bloody hand down across Luke's face. The wide swath of Seth's blood traces from Harper's hairline down between his eyes, across his nose and mouth and onto his chin. Then Bray pressed their foreheads together for a brief second before Luke left to retake his place in the semi-circle.

They came one after another to receive Bray’s benediction in the eye of the storm. Rowan next, then Dean and Roman. Before each man reached them, Bray wiped another handful of blood off of Seth's chest to bless them with. Seth didn't struggle, didn't even feel the pain after a while - he was completely entranced by the sinkhole. 

Why had Seth thought that he couldn’t see the bottom? The dark scar of the sinkhole mirrored the hurricane’s eye above them, empty and eternal, but Seth could see all the way down into it now. 

For a while he thought that he was looking down into a pool of blood, so deep and thick that it was as black as pitch. Ripples shivered out across the surface, scattered by some unknown disruption, shimmering along their crests when the weak storm-light hit them, writhing into and over one another and then Seth realized that it was not not blood at all. The base of the sinkhole was a snakepit, a mass of hissing vipers at the bottom of that dark void. They slithered over one another, coiling and scenting the air with their tongues, merging together to become something so atrociously alive that it is not a living thing at all. Seth saw then that the sinkhole was a machined cylinder, a hollow reactor core. It was the barrel of a gun that had been buried in the earth since before time, waiting to fire. It was the tube of a vast spyglass pointing right at them, the optics ever adjusting as whatever could bear to exist on the other side of it tried to focus in.

Then a deep understanding came over Seth and he knew that he wasn’t looking down into the earth at all. He was looking up, up into that immense machine, that ball of writhing serpents, that sea of blood that was suspended somehow above him. He was looking up, and the eye of the storm was a yawning chasm below him. The dark billowing walls of clouds against a bright flat sky threatening to suck him down and whisk him away. Away from the snakes and the blood and the warm embrace of his family.

Bray knelt in front of him, his right hand wet again with Seth's own blood.

“Now you see. Are you ready?”

Seth was.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr ](http://www.bingitoff.Tumblr.com)  
>     
> As always I write and edit everything on my phone, so please let me know if I've made any particularly terrible mistakes.
> 
> I am actually really proud of this one? Kudos and comments are much appreciated!


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